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Climate Models More Accurate Than Salinity Models

Some time ago I was sent a link to a paper by Myanna Lahsen, an anthropologist who spent seven years studying climate modelers at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research.

Her research findings seem to focus on what the modelers said, without scrutinizing the extent to which what they said about the models, accorded with reality. In particular Myanna found that the modelers were very attached to their models and sometimes confused model output with reality. But it is unclear from her work how accurate the models were – the extent to which they did accord with reality?

Last time I looked I was impressed with the extent to which well known global warming scientist, James Hansen, was still on track with his 1988 prediction (Scenario B) about global temperature increase.

Then again between his Scenario A and C, he was covering a range of possibilities?

But hey, all predictions, made back in 1988, have been consistent with what has been a warming trend over the last 18 years.

In contrast, government scientists who made predictions about salinity along the Murray, in particular the NSW Riverina, got it really wrong.

The following graph shows what the models predicted would be the extent of the problem in the Riverina with, and without, a commitment to catchment and farm drainage plans.

The problem of rising groundwater in the NSW Riverina once seemed intractable. In 1990 123,300 hectares was considered at high risk of salinity because the water table was within two meters of the surface. At that time it was predicted that if the irrigators did nothing, by 2006 228,700 hectares would be lost to salt. If the irrigators committed to a $473 million program with $150 million from the state and federal governments, it was predicted that only 182,620 million hectares would be lost.

The irrigators committed to the program in the early 1990s including the implementation of drainage works often including water recycling systems to reduce recharge to the groundwater and improve water use efficiency.

The actual area now affected by shallow water tables is just 3,758 hectares – this is just two percent of the area that the NSW government thought would be affected under the most optimist scenario.

While I am pleased salt levels have been falling in the Murray River, and that the area at risk of salinity in the NSW Riverina has reduced to 2 percent of what was predicted, I am always amazed at how many people ignore this great news story.

Earlier this week the Australian Parliament’s Senate Environment Committee released a report about salinity. The report reads as though hardly anything has been achieved in address salinity in the Australian landscape.

The report recommends an extension of funding for the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality – a project that began in 2001 with a budget of $1.4 billion. It is unclear from the senate report how this $1.4 billion has been spent.

Senator Andrew Bartlett chaired the committee and has a blog piece on the report here.

The Senate report repeats the finding from the National Land and Water Audit’s Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000 that 17 million hectares of Australian farmland could be lost to dryland salinity by 2050.

Yet various recent reports have shown the 17 million hectare figure to be a gross exaggeration.

“Increasingly, researchers are concluding that many of the assumptions and much of the data used in generating this estimate were wrong, or should not have been used. There are suggestions, for example, that some State salinity assessments used to calculate the national estimate overstate the current extent of salinity by factors of between three and seven times, let alone the projected future extent. Several of the state reports had no reliable data to base estimates on, and many made assumptions about future groundwater levels – a critical element in salinity assessments – that defy the laws of gravity and science, and are not supported by available data.”

At some point in time, the Australian community and the Australian Senate should accept that farmers have learnt how to manage salt. It hasn’t gone away, but the area affected by salinity is contracting and this is a great news story everyone should be shouting about.

But they are not.

And I am reminded of a comment posted at this blog about the same day the Senate released the report. While Geoff Sherrington made the comment in the context of global warming, it seems much more applicable to salinity modeling:

“Modelers would be prudent to keep their frameworks up to date, with periodic testing and private comparison with others, until consensus is reached that the methodology is scientifically good and all plausible effects are quantified.

Economists should not make predictions until that consensus is reached, unless they like eating humble pie.

If, in my earth sciences past, our company had announced a new ore deposit and given figures for its value to the Stock Exchange that was premature, we would well have ended up incarcerated.

If we got our maths wrong and mined a body that turned out a dud, we could go out of business and on the street. These outcomes instill a certain caution and accountability. Greenhouse modelers who produce premature estimates don’t have the same sword hanging over their heads. Their reward is more likely idolatry from supplicants.”

Certainly the doomsay salinity modelers have received nothing but praise, and the science managers who repeated their predictions promoted including to the National Water Commission, while I am often called all sort of nasty names at the popular blogs including at John Quiggin’s and Andrew Bartlett’s for daring to suggest they might have got their predictions very wrong.

And looking at biocontrol – can’t be too careful as some recent escapes show. So perhaps we’d better shut that down till we’re 1000% certain. Can’t be too careful can we?

So – let he who is without sin cast the first stone !

Jen’s example is pretty disturbing though – not good. Shoddy stuff.

But it is not like we have no problems with salinity in Australia. So there is some background for concern.

However – clearly one size does not fit all – IMHO the issue goes to a woeful lack of investment in serious monitoring of natural resources and blind spots (e.g. anyone worried about soil acidity ??) and a rundown of natural resource science capacity and capacity in the field.

So you end up with “modelled responses” on “the three data points available” urgently for “the Minister” and “good enough for government work”. You are also dealing with sustainability issues on century or decadal time scales -so you also run into “not in my administration please – the next 3 years”.

Pay peanuts (on natural resource science, have no field program) and you get monkeys.

Let’s recognise that some models are predicting it fairly accurately and I’m going to include the IPCC global AGW model here – perhaps because they understand how the system really works or perhaps because they have been lucky.

But some models have got it really wrong – and there is no acknowledgement of this.

And while a lot of natural resource management is grossly underfunded – salinity scientists have received lots of dollars and lots more dollars which as far as I can tell they have wasted.
The $1.4 billion for the salinity action plan could have build 50 high schools – what has it achieved for the environment?

Not disagreeing – but IMHO the level of monitoring (bore holes) over a decent time period (if not ongoing, basic geology and water quality measurements is pretty ordinary. Seems to me that governments are allergic to spending more on core field monitoring and having people record things. Why are we in a relatively good position with climate data in Australia – vision of the Bureau of Meteorology to long term monitoring and selfless monitoring on 1000s of volunteer observors. But of course the rats are nibbling here too. USA has 100 year rangland monitoring programs – what do we have ?

And then there’s the cynicism of the funding bodies themselves – I was told over dinner by a very senior bureaucrat in this area that governments don’t fund salinity research to do research – but to remove it from the front page of newspapers. Hardly a recipe for quality. Too much touchy feely and not enough hard science.

Despite differences between us on this blog I think many of the hard men, the geologists here, would know what serious engineering looks like. What’s required.

The environmental issues are more challenging and more diffuse. But you need quality committed people, well trained, and really good monitoring data. My assertion is that all of this is reaching a parlous state in this country. And the $1.4B may have been spent better with harder heads not pandering to governmental “popularity” whims.

To this point I was interested in my regular jousting companion, Rog’s view, on the use of Landcare. Feel good ? or make good? (he dons hard hat in preparation for stoning).

I suggest we want salinity both off the landscape and off the newspapers. Meanwhile what’s happening with the soil acidity blind spot? Have we got our priorities right. And if our monitoring attire is down around our ankles would we even know?

The diversity of comment about science, opinion, dogma, agendas, expenditure, priorities and so on will be debated for a long time, on the Net and elsewhere, for there is no great effort to find out why there is such disharmony and what remedies might be applied.

My private feelings lead towards deficiencies in the ways that monies are allocated as grants to allow research. I doubt that many people would argue the point that bandwagons can form and gain considerable funding momentum. The use of solar energy for electricity generation is a good example. The fundamentals of Physics limit the energy density available for capture, hence the economics. Sure, there are success stories in very remote areas on a small scale, but blind Freddie could have predicted these. Yet we still have an annual gravy train lining up for more research grants.

In my mining years, we did not get grants – mostly, we paid them to others. We existed on the success of our discoveries and on the value of our mines. It was to our own advantage to surround ouselves with successful compatriots and to quickly reject those who could not front the challenges. A McKinsey & Co report some years ago ranked us as in the top 5 in the world in our exploration successes.

This type of “natural selection” does not exist, or is far weaker, in many areas where funding is handed out. Those seeking the handouts seem to hone their skills on writing good funding submissions and making optimistic forecasts as to why even more funding will be needed. The systems of funding need to be moved more to “results based” formulae.

The above comments relate to normal studies. The situation worsens when wo go to the fringe. Now this is a dangerous area, a little minefield, because brilliant ideas can start out as fringe concepts and be attributed to loonies. On the other hand, there ARE many loonies out there holding their hands out for funds. One of the characteristics commonly exhibited by these loonies is the denial of alternatives. If you are going for funds to commercialise methane from cow farts, it seems mandatory to denounce nuclear, to use extreme examples. Thus arises dogma.

This posting is long enough, but I think I have made my point about results based funding. Good on the farmers who achieved the salinity results you have tabulated. Can we model why it worked and extend the logic into other sectors of research? Can we reduce errors in the allocation of scarce research funds towards those who eternally equivocate or confuse science with ideology?

A comment on rats nibbling at BoM data collection the number of rain stations monitored annually seems to have declined by about 25% since mid 1970’s, Just when the nation seeks to better quantify EC decisions!. Easier to build a dodgy model and do touch feely stuff that can never be checked I guess.

Dear Phil
I noticed your statement “But it is not like we have no problems with salinity in Australia”.
What do you define as a problem?
Do I interpret this to mean that, left unchecked (i.e. without some form of societal intervention) in the future the social losses from salinity, would outweigh the benefits from the activities giving rise to salinity? Or more importantly do you mean that the benefits from curbing the activities of those giving rise to increased salinity will outweigh the costs of curbing the activities?

As I raised a few times on this BLOG how do environmentalists/ecologists/greenies address these types of issues? Is there some benchmark (I know it’s a horrible word) against which one measures the impact of the “human footprint” on the environment?

I certainly have no argument with you about the need to recognize science. After all without the science these sorts of issues will never be satisfactorily resolved. In the same vein I am disappointed that my old Department seems to be going down a path of employing relatively fewer scientists but more administrators/policy officers but I guess that is another issue.
Blair

Couple of points – the levels of justification for getting research grants is enormous. You have to do a cost benefit analysis in terms of deciding to bid. 10% get to round 2. 30% of round 2 might get up. Funding submissions are almost a profession in themselves. We’re at the stage now for major infrastructure where one has to have professional submission writers and lobbyists to get the submission up ! You need to get a grant to get the grant. Where’s the science quality in all this ? Cost of doing business has gone from 10% to maybe 40% now days. But everyone wants quadruple layers of accountability.

And far too much emphasis on immediate delivery to “clients” as opposed to finding out what the hell is going on. If you can’t do it in 3 years you won’t get funded. So we get paff and quickie “modelling” to get a result.

Salinity has different causes in different parts of the nation. Salinity in SW WA is big scale. Google it Blair ! Mixed problems in eastern states. And you go from winter dominant rainfall systems in southern Australia to summer dominant in the north. Different drainage and evaporation issues may differences across the nation, as does land use and geology.

Blair – another big problem with environmental issues in Australia is separating out the management (human) signal from the climate variation. Do things look bad coz we’re in drought or alternatively 1950s/1970s wet years phase of some Pacific Oscillation; or is it our management i.e land clearing, intensity of cropping/grazing, use of fertilisers/pesticide, irrigation practices etc. Have we got underlying climate change trends like rainfall fundamentally changing in eastern Australia, frost incidence reducing etc.

To follow on from Phil, I don’t think it is all that hard. In the late 1980s I did a CO2 balance calculation for our company and subsids of about 4,000 people, in fairly deep detail. As we owned one of the larger forestry-paper companies, we were able to plant trees and sequester CO2 and had been doing so for years. In brief, overall, if we emitted 100 units of CO2 then we repaid about 40 in the year under study. Not good enough. Then I introduced the uranium replacement of coal into the equation and we were ahead by orders of magnitude.

Corporately, it was not hard to recognise that we were contributing to a problem. It was not hard to quantify it. It was not hard to take action (more trees) to improve it.

This type of analysis can be done at any scale from personal to global. It is not as hard as you might imagine to sort the goods from the bads. You mention pesticides, which seem due for a period of universal condemnation. Yet, one can reconstruct say for DDT the number of lives that were saved by it versus those lost, then quantify the secondary alleged ill-effects, such as thinning of eggshells (not true, experts tell me). You can tag a price onto each one of these, which is what some economists do for a living and you can usually find a way to halt or lessen the bad.

Same with asbestos, which copped a serve somewhere. Have you ever considered the number of lives that asbestos has saved, in functions from firefroof suits for firefighters to preserving heat in submarine propulsion to assist in warfare performance? I think if you model it using parameters of human good or welfare, it still comes out vastly positive. But with extended time we have learned to be cautious with some mineral forms of it, part of the rocky road of learning. It is quite feasible that mining continued in some parts of the world by government decree as it was a material essential to the war effort.

The harder ones are where chance (an extreme emotion) plays a big part. How much should be spent on quarantine at Australian ports of entry? Should ammonium nitrate fertilizer be withdrawn because a nutter might make a bomb with it? Should cyanide used in gold mining cease because someone might want to put it in a city’s water supply?

It is through evaluative and remedial processes like those above that the standard of living in the world has steadily improved. These processes are going on all of the time, all around us. The trick is to judge the ones most in need of the research dollar. That has to be a government decision unless the problem is contained within an identifiable group which can fix itself, the best way.

90% of it ever used is the chrysotile form, and consists of a tubular fibre that is dissolved and expelled by the lungs and is a negligible cancer hazard. Long exposure to it in the past did of course result in asbestosis, but exposure to heavy concentrations of any dust, whether coal, silica, flour also results in a similar reaction.

Crocidolite, or blue asbestos, is very nasty and deadly. This was the asbestos that caused all the damage and deaths from cancer.

However the US EPA lumped both types together and deemed that all asbestos is dangerous despite severe criticism from Science and The Lancet that chrysotile is ok, provided one takes normal precautions for dust inhalation.

The EPA director involved in banning asbestos then became president of the largest asbestos abatement companies in the US.

Thomas Huxley summarised it neatly : “Authorities… are the curse of science; and do more to interfere with the scientific spirit than all its enemies”.

I am not sure how this can be resolved in Australia because we have such a small population, and the issue is complex, to be sure. This month’s Quadrant magazine tackles some of the issues affecting science funding, for example.

Dear Phil
I am quite aware of the “salinity problem” in WA.
Scientists and Govt. Departments back in the 20s knew that expansion of cropping in WA would result in “salinty problems” down the track. So what? Should there have been no expansion of cropping in the SW corner of WA?
But again I pose to you the questions;”What do you define as a problem?” and if “salinity in SW WA is big scale” again so what?
Hopefully somebody out there in blogland will also answer my earlier question: “Is there some benchmark (I know it’s a horrible word) against which one measures the impact of the “human footprint” on the environment?
Blair

Who is saying that, negative effects notwithstanding, DDT and asbestos have not had any utilitarian value? The difference of opinion is whether broadscale use of such toxins, were there is strong evidence of negative impacts, should continue, be restricted or be completely banned. Then you get into a review of trade-offs, substitutes and alternative approaches to a problem. An inescapable aspect of such a review is invidual values regarding the nature of the impact.

Economic measures are relatively short term compared to the length of natural cycles. Geoff don’t dismiss the problem in public valuation methods – that a significant number of study participants from the general public have expressed a strong reluctance to place a financial value on natural assets. Hence proxies may be used, but they’re only best guesstimate proxies with a limited focus and the methods remain controversial, even among economists. Even if some economists overlook the fact that financial measures are a human construct, a subset of the larger system, lots of common Joes on the street and traditional peoples don’t. Methods of valuation are a long way from settled nor their outcomes universally acceptable to the general public.

Blair when do you think salinity and other human impacts become a ‘problem’ (what do yuo suggest is a problem)? You seem (to me) have the most experience in this area of all the commenters, so what’s your view, if you care to express it? I can’t resist from suggesting that there’s a strong correlation between an individual’s choice of footwear and their preferred measure of (impact) footprint, even if humour is unwelcome here.

Blair, if 50 to 80 years is as sustainable as the system gets that’s appalling with soil genesis measured in the 1000s. I don’t we can damage areas that large and claim we have a sustainable agriculture. I don’t have a simple benchmark number for your question, simply to say IMHO there’s enough national salinisation experience and problems to have some fair concern. Do you think there is not??

Some concern should be backed up by using lessons learnt already, good monitoring, good science, including climate interactions, with an eye to the economic / natural resource trade-offs.

The West Australians of course maybe able to engineer/adapt/ameliorate their way out of the problem to some extent. But knowing the extent of the problem I don’t think you’d make the same mistakes if you had your time over. Or make them again elsewhere.

One solution which is somewhat appalling is to sacrifice a few creeks as salt drains. !!!

Each person comes to their own conclusions I guess, but I’m surprised that you felt that the Senate Committee “report reads as though hardly anything has been achieved in address salinity in the Australian landscape.”

I think a lot has been achieved, but the risk is still significant in many areas, the knowledge is still incomplete and actions are still occuring that increase the chances of more damage occuring.

I guess with any report of this type, you tend to focus more on what needs to be done better, but I felt there was a lot in there demonstrating the work that has gone on to date.

It is true to say that “The Senate report repeats the finding from the National Land and Water Audit’s Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000”, but it would be more accurate to also say that the report makes clear that subsequent studies have produced different results.

Paragraphs 2.10 onwards detail some of the alternative findings and includes quotes from Dept officials such as “..I think it is fair to say that, with increasing knowledge, it seems the picture may be a little more optimistic than we thought from the first review of salinity risk provided by the National Land and Water Resources Audit.”;

In para 2.32 the Committee concluded that “The National Land and Water Resources Audit 2000 salinity assessment provided a broad brush picture of the salinity threat in Australia. Evidence suggests this has been instrumental in focusing greater attention on the salinity problem. The Committee was encouraged to hear that recent knowledge and more sophisticated mapping offer an outlook that is not quite as bleak as previously thought. However, the Committee appreciates that salinity still presents a significant environmental and economic challenge.”;

I think that is a fair overview. Different techniques, evolving scientific understanding and different terminology produce different figures of the overall problem, but I am not aware of anyone disputing that there is a serious problem which is causing significant economic and environmental loss.

Whilst it is reasonable to query the accuracy of earlier studies (or any study), I think it would be dangerous to create an impression from that this then means salinity is not still a major problem – or most importantly a future threat.

DDT and thin eggshells? There have baeen many papers discounting this over the years. Some even ctrisised Carson’s “Silent Spring” as deliberatley bogus, whic at the time was akin to spitting in Church. Here is one

Re Andrew Bartlett’s comments, i have given evidence before Senate Inquiries myself, then compared the published result with what was said. I had at my side a former cabinet secretary who told me of the processes that occur between the open hearing and the secretary writing his version of proceedings in a way that will stisfy future employment in that role.

This sounds a bit cynical, but the procedures are not perfect and they are open to political ineterference, as judged by the not uncommon issue of a dissenting or minority report which scarcely anyone seems to publicise. Ofetn the dissenting report is on party linesor nearly so.

The old political adage of not asking a question unless you know what the answer will be seems to be applied to setting the terms of reference of these inquiries in many instances. Also, because of the presence of minor parties in the parliament, who feel they have to be represented in many matters (even disproportionately) increases the chances of some rather wonderful witnesses and questions, bottom of the garden stuff.

I wish there was a better mechanism, but I do not have the personal power to override the “born to rule” mentality.

The proceedings are all transcribed for Hansard, and all witnesses are also sent a copy of Hansard’s proof version of their evidence for them to correct any errors. They are also recorded in the event of any dispute. To suggest the published proceedings are doctored in some way is ludicrous, if not defamatory.

As for dissenting reports, my experience is that they tend to get much more media attention than a unanimous report – as the media tend to be more interested in conflict. In any case, the report that is the subject of this post was a unanimous one which was signed off by Senators from Labor, Liberal, Democrat and Green, so any suggestion that it was either ‘subject to political interference’ or somehow distorted by the presence of minor parties is equally ludicrous.

For Andrew, yes, the procedures are as you describe, but the witnesses do not make the summary of findings or the recommendations. Quite well-reasoned and valid submissions can be left out of the recommendations because they don’t suit the question.

Also, there can be reporting on the Internet of certain papers from Inquiries and the non-reporting (except title and autor) of others. Given the amount of research done after the hearing by Internet rather than by Hansard, this also adds to questionable outcomes.

I was not questioning the transcription abilities of staff. I was questioning the selective use of data.

Hi Bugger, not so. Have you had equivalent experience of appearing before Inquiries like these, or making written submissions, and having the behind-the-scenes processes described by an ex Cabinet Secretary, like setting the terms of reference and choosing the committee? What’s in it for me to tell porkies? I’ve nothing but my reputation at stake and I value that.

I also read the input from Dr Cooper of the ACT with great interest and mentally checked every point relevant to my own observations however limited by impressions after 2003. I wrote a number of submissions to bushfire inquiries about impressions during and after that fire season. Time will tell if they had an impact on policy or other proceedings.

Geoff must have missed my recent defence of BRS maps and Meta data as a source in good Commonwealth, State and Regional relationships and ongoing discussions over land cover.

Elsewhere I put up the concept of a self regulated and independent peer group of technical experts from within industry and regional bodies as the appropriate authority on leading edge practice in our environment such as we had with NATA in electrical engineering and many other technologies including forensic science.